Book Description
First published in Paris in 1511, The Praise of Folly has enjoyed enormous and highly controversial success from the author’s lifetime down to our own day. The Folly has no rival, except perhaps Thomas More’s Utopia, as the most intense and lively presentation of the literary, social, and theological aims and methods of Northern Humanism. Clarence H. Miller’s highly praised translation of The Praise of Folly, based on the definitive Latin text, echoes Erasmus’ own lively style while retaining the nuances of the original text. In his introduction, Miller places the work in the context of Erasmus as humanist and theologian. In a new afterword, William H. Gass playfully considers the meaning, or meanings, of folly and offers fresh insights into one of the great books of Western literature.


Language Notes
Text: English, Latin (translation)


About the Author
Clarence H. Miller, now emeritus, is Dorothy McBride Orthwein Professor of English Literature at St. Louis University. He served as executive editor of the fifteen-volume Yale Edition of The Complete Works of St. Thomas More and is the translator of More’s Utopia, published by Yale University Press. William H. Gass, whose most recent novel is The Tunnel, is one of America’s foremost living writers.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

About the Author:
The second illegitimate son of a priest and of a doctor's daughter, Erasmus was born in Rotterdam around 1467. His parents died while he was young, and he had little choice but to join a monastery, where ultimately his literary talent was revealed. His first trip to England was momentous: he met several leading scholars and churchmen, notably the theologians John Colet and Thomas More, who became his life-long friends and who influenced his work.

SYNOPSIS